Video playback systems are well known, and there are a variety of current standards that govern the format and other attributes associated with the various video playback systems. Today, the DVD (Digital Video Disc) standard is the predominant format utilized for optical disc storage because of its high storage capacity, thus enabling high quality video and audio to be stored. Consequently, media content such as movies, television shows, and music videos are made widely available in DVD format. One of the appealing aspects of DVDs over other storage formats such as VHS tapes (Video Home System) is the interactive menu(s) offered on DVDs in addition to the movie itself. These interactive menus have become an integral part in fully enjoying media content, such as a movie or television show on a DVD. For example, now, in addition to watching a movie, consumers can select specific chapters to view, set audio/video options (language for the movie to be played in, subtitles, etc.), and even watch additional footage such as a “behind-the-scenes” look in making the movie. Some DVDs even offer “alternate endings” where consumers can actually select an ending of their choice should they not like the original ending. Since DVD players first became available to consumers in the mid to late 1990's, DVD players are common in many households. This is due in part to the drop in cost of DVD players, therefore making them affordable to consumers. Furthermore, today most personal desktop and laptop computers are sold with a DVD-ROM player built in, making DVD players even more widespread and even more portable than before.
Typically, with a conventional stand-alone DVD player (e.g., a player not integrated into a computer system and one that requires a separate display device such as a television), the DVD player will come with a remote control which the consumer uses to access features offered by a DVD. With this remote control, the consumer is able to navigate through the hierarchy of interactive menus a particular DVD might offer. A typical remote control for a DVD player will include a set of up/down and left/right arrows. Some remote controls might include a SELECT button in the middle of an arrangement of up/down, left/right navigational buttons. The navigational buttons allows users to intuitively move more around within a menu. For example, in a screen allowing the user to select a specific chapter to view, a series of thumbnail screen shots might be shown on the screen in a grid arrangement (e.g., in a 2×2 arrangement). A particular thumbnail, say the upper left thumbnail on the screen, might be selected by default and highlighted. From there, the user would simply use the up/down, left/right navigational buttons to highlight a different thumbnail until the desired thumbnail is highlighted. The user might then press the SELECT button to enter his selection. Based on this, the corresponding chapter in the movie will be played.
With DVD players integrated into desktop computers or laptops, the user will generally rely on a graphical user interface (GUI) instead of a remote control to navigate through the series of menus within a DVD. The GUI will generally emulate the same functionality as a remote control. For example, the user can still select chapters to view, fast forward, reverse, set audio/video options, etc. However, instead of navigating through a menu using a series of up/down, left/right selections, the user might click a button shown on the screen using an input device such as a mouse or touch pad on a laptop.
Today, there are various standards in consideration to become the successor to the DVD standard. Two formats competing to become the next generation optical standard are BLU-RAY DISC® and HD DVD® (High Definition Digital Video Disc). As with these newer standards, BLU-RAY DISC® offers advantages over DVDs and other previous optical standards in various ways including increased storage capacity and enhanced interactivity (disc content authoring, seamless menu navigation, network/Internet connectivity, etc.). The BLU-RAY DISC® framework offers content providers almost unlimited functionality when creating interactive titles. The author has complete freedom in designing the user interface, which is controllable by using standard navigational buttons on a remote control.
With DVDs, playback is interrupted each time a new menu screen is called. For example, if a user desires to change the language from English to French while watching the movie, the user has to select the audio menu. This, however, causes the movie to stop playing, and a menu is displayed for the user to select from. Upon making his selection, the user then returns back to viewing the movie. Due to BLU-RAY DISC's® ability to read data from the disc without interrupting the current audio/video stream, various menus can be displayed while the movie is playing. Furthermore, the menus may consist of several pages. Users will be able to browse through various pages of menu selections without interrupting the movie.
Also with DVDs, user browsable slideshows were not possible with uninterrupted audio. As a result of BLU-RAY DISC's® ability to read data from the disc without interrupting the current audio/video stream, users can browse through various still pictures (e.g., snapshots of various scenes in the movie) while the audio remains playing. This applies not only to forward and backward selections: A user can make different selections on what picture to view (or select from a screen presented with thumbnail images) while the audio remains playing. With DVDs, subtitles were stored in the audio/video stream, and therefore they had limitations on the number of languages and display styles. Again, it is due to BLU-RAY DISC's® ability to read data from the disc without interrupting the current audio/video stream, that subtitles can be stored independently on the disc. A user may select different font styles, sizes and colors for the subtitles, or location on screen, depending on the disc's offerings. Subtitles can be animated, scrolled or faded in and out.
As with the BLU-RAY DISC® standard, new features have also been added to the new HD DVD® standard which provide for enhanced interactive features over DVDs. The HD DVD®framework also allows interactive content to be authored for discs.
Regardless of the particular standard, newer-generation video standards such as BLU-RAY DISC® and HD DVD® are providing greater levels of user control and interactivity with the underlying video content. One area embodying such interactivity relates to the presentation and utilization of buttons. As is known, in interactive graphics, a menu contains one or more pages. Similarly, a page contains one or more buttons, and a button is defined by coordinates (e.g., x-y coordinates), a graphical object, and one or more associated commands. For example, in the context of a DVD video, a user is typically provided with various functions, such as a scene-selection function. In this function, a user may be presented with a variety of single image graphics, which are taken from, and associated with, each of a plurality of scenes. By using the remote control for the DVD player, the user may highlight, or select, any of these images, and may further instruct the DVD player to proceed directly to a given scene by activating the corresponding highlighted image.
From a more technical standpoint, these images, as seen by the user, are provided in the form of mechanisms called “buttons.” Note that this is not to be confused with reference to buttons on a remote control. As mentioned above, each such button is defined by coordinates (e.g., the x and y location where the button will be presented on the screen), a graphic object (i.e., the image that is presented to the user), and one or more associated commands (e.g., a command that directs the DVD player to jump or skip directly to a selected scene).
Reference is now made to FIG. 1, which depicts an exemplary multi-page menu within a video playback system, such as a DVD player. A user typically navigates through the various pages using a remote control. When a user inserts a video disc (e.g., a DVD video), a main menu may be presented on a first page 102 to a user displaying “Main Menu” 104, “Languages” 106, and “Chapters” 108. Using the arrow keys on a remote control for the DVD player, the user may highlight the button for the “Languages” menu 106 option. Once highlighted, the user may press the SELECT key on the remote control, which causes a second page 110 to be presented to the user, having a heading of “Languages” 112. Underneath this heading, a series of buttons may be presented for each language of the associated audio. The languages illustrated in FIG. 1 are “English” 114 and “French” 116.
Alternatively, and as indicated in FIG. 1, if the user highlighted and activated the “Chapters” button 108 from the first page 102, then the third page 118 is presented to the user. As illustrated, this third page includes a heading of “Chapter 1” 120 along with four additional buttons labeled as “Scene 1” 122, “Scene 2” 124, “Main” 126, and “Next” 128. Again, the user may navigate these buttons using the arrow keys on the remote control to highlight any of these buttons. Once highlighted, the user may press a SELECT key provided on the remote control to activate the given button. For example, and as illustrated in the figure, if the user were to activate the “Next” button 128, then the menu would proceed to display a fourth page 132 (presenting image buttons for “Scene 3” 134 and “Scene 4” 136 to the user). As is known, new video standards provide for these and other robust interactive features, which have generally enhanced the user's experience with the graphics medium.
Notwithstanding these enhanced features, however, certain problems have been found to arise. One example where such problems have been found to arise is in the use of computers (rather than designated video players) to display or view the videos. Specifically, a problem arises when using standard input/output devices of a computer, such as a mouse, to interact with the video content, instead of using the remote control that is provided with a dedicated video player (e.g., DVD player). When the same video disc is being executed or displayed on a computer, it has been found that a user may freely select otherwise non-selectable buttons, simply by moving the mouse over the top of the button. Returning to the example presented above, if the user were to move the mouse across the “Languages” button 112 on the second page 110, this would result in an unintended operation. Depending on how the underlying computer program handled it, various different and unintended results could occur. For example, the button may be presented in a highlighted fashion to the user. However, when the user left-clicks the mouse to activate the button, the video program may do nothing as the video disc does not intend that button to be one that can be selected or activated from that page. As an example, in the second page 110, the “Languages” button 112 is not intended to be selectable as denoted by the dotted lines. Only the two buttons below this button (“English” 114 and “French” 116) are meant to be selectable. Attempting to activate the “Languages” 112 button in this case could cause the computer program to crash, depending on how the underlying application processes the selection request.
For purposes of providing nomenclature herein, a button, typically, has one of four possible states. Reference is now made to FIG. 2, which depicts the different states for buttons within a video playback system. These states include a “disabled” state 202, a “normal” state 204, a “selected” state 206, and an “activated” state 208. Referring back to FIG. 1, for the second page 110 being displayed, the “Languages” 112 button would be in a disabled state, as the underlying video content software does not intend for that button to be selected from that particular page. (This is denoted by the dotted line around the button.) The “French” button 114 is in the normal state, while the “English” button 114 is in the selected state. When the user clicks the left mouse key, when the mouse pointer is overlying a selected button, or when the user presses the SELECT key of a remote control for a selected button, then that selected button becomes activated and therefore enters the activated state 208. The activated state 208 is a temporary state, which typically leaves the underlying video content or software to execute the one or more commands that are associated with the button.
As illustrated in FIG. 2, from the activated state 208, a button may proceed to any of the other three possible states. Again in FIG. 1, for the first page the “Languages” button 106 is selected. Upon activation of the “Languages” button 106, the associated command causes, among other possible operations, the menu to proceed to the second page 110. At this time, the “Languages” button 112 enters the disabled state, as it is not intended for selection from this page of the menu. To provide a specific illustration, and returning to FIG. 1, in the last three pages (of the four pages presented in the figure), the top-most button may be a non-selectable button. That is, in the second page 110, the figure illustrates three buttons of “Languages” 112, “English” 114, and “French” 116. The system, however, may be designed to only permit the user to select the buttons of “English” 114 and “French” 116. In this regard, the “Languages” button may be a non-selectable button. Thus, when the “English” 114 is highlighted, and the user depresses the up arrow key on the remote control the “Languages” will not be highlighted or selected when a user interacts with the video disc using the remote control of the dedicated video disc player.
Such features may be implemented, in part, through certain properties of buttons, such as a “neighbor” property. As is known, and defined by certain video specifications (e.g., BLU-RAY Disc® specification) a button may be defined to have neighbors to the left and right or top and bottom. In such a situation, when a given button is selected (e.g., highlighted) pressing any of the up-arrow, down-arrow, left-arrow, or right-arrow button on the remote control operates to select, or highlight, the button that is defined to the be neighbor of the selected button in the direction selected by the remote control. However, it is not required that neighbors be so associated with buttons in any given direction (or even at all). Therefore, in returning to the figure, it may be that only the “French” button 116 is associated with the “English” button 114 as a neighbor. Therefore, when the “English” button 114 is selected, only the down-arrow key will be recognized as a valid or legitimate arrow-key input (e.g., other arrow keys are ignored). This way, the user is not permitted to select, with the remote control, any button presented on the screen that is not intended for selection in the current page or context of the video presentation.
However, when the same video disc is being executed or displayed on a computer, it has been found that a user may freely select otherwise non-selectable buttons, simply by moving the mouse over the top of the button. Returning to the example presented above, if the user were to move the mouse across the “Languages” button 112, this would result in an unintended operation. Depending on how the underlying computer program handled it, various different and unintended results could occur. For example, the button may be presented in a highlighted fashion to the user. However, when the user left-clicks the mouse to activate the button, the video program may do nothing (as the video disc does not intend that button to be one that can be selected or activated from that page). Alternatively, attempting to active such a button could cause the computer program to crash.
An example of another issue when attempting to use a mouse or other computer input device arises when two buttons are overlaid with each other. When playing a video disc using a computer and while interfacing with the interactive video disc using an input device such as a mouse, problems may arise. As noted above, one problem may be that the system generates errors or confusing results when the mouse is moved over any of buttons in a normal state, but not intended for selection. In addition, when using the mouse to select the overlaid buttons, the user does not have a ready means for toggling between those two buttons, since they are displayed in identical locations on the screen. In this regard, pressing the mouse key will select whichever of those buttons is currently highlighted, but will not permit the user to toggle to the other button, since the mouse does not have a key corresponding the left-arrow or right-arrow keys of the remote control.
Yet another issue or problem arises in connection with the use of “transparent” buttons or buttons that are too small in size. Transparent buttons are sometimes used as a convenient tool to provide an action when a user depresses a certain button on the remote control input device, without visibly presenting the button to the user. Because these buttons may not be visible to the user, it is not feasible for a user to use a mouse to select these buttons because the precise location is not known.
The foregoing presents just a few examples of situations in which interactive video graphics are provided which require special selection methods beyond the conventional “point-and-click” action of a mouse. Accordingly, solutions to these and other similar problems are desired. One key aspect of embodiments of the present invention is the detection and identification of buttons that require special selection methods beyond conventional means of selecting buttons with a mouse. Another key aspect of embodiments of the present invention is the use of button maps, which identify and store all “numeric” buttons within a given page. Numeric buttons are buttons that have a corresponding number associated with them and that would normally be selected by pressing the same corresponding number key on a remote control. Button maps contain a complete listing of all buttons that may be selected using special selection methods disclosed for various embodiments of the present invention. Buttons not within the button map are simply ignored. Therefore, there exists a need, among others, for providing users with the ability to utilize the interactive graphics within video content using standard input/output devices of a computer. There also exists a need, among others, for providing users with a means for identifying and selecting from a group of numeric buttons within pages in a video playback system. Broadly, the embodiments of the present invention provide robust or effective solutions or workarounds to the problematic issues that arise in connection with buttons in pages within an interactive video playback system.